The Shiny One
by Solstice Muse
Summary: Molly is making an apple pie and her little boy, Ronnie, is watching her. Utter sappiness for a change!


_A/N For my beautiful Quizzical's birthday - This is very sweet and non angsty, very unlike me!_

**The Shiny One**

Molly was making pastry for an apple pie, blending in the fat to the flour and constantly blowing her hair out of her face without any effect.

Arthur had taken Bill and Charlie to a Quidditch match and Percy was reading quietly in the shade of a tree outside. Fred and George were conspiring to do something to poor Percy from behind a nearby bush and Ginny was painting the flowers in the garden.

She wasn't painting pictures of the flowers. She was actually painting the flowers. She was going through a phase where she wanted to paint everything with black paint and now Molly looked out onto a bed of black daffodils and tulips with a weary sigh.

"I suppose black is better than red," she said to herself as she reached for the rolling pin and picked up the handle of a toy broomstick by mistake.

Percy had been through a painting phase too, only he'd splashed red paint all over the place and set Molly on a permanent anxiety attack by making it look like there was fresh blood everywhere. The thing with her children and their painting phases, they loved the paint when it was wet, as soon as it dried they lost interest and the product of their labours were thrown away with distain.

Molly found her rolling pin and rubbed some flour into the smooth cylindrical wood.

She felt the bright blue eyes watching her and smiled to herself. Chubby little fingers gripped the side of the counter and a long nose was squished up against the side as her baby boy watched her work.

She rolled the pastry flat, pulled it around ninety degrees and rolled again to gain extra width.

"Go 'way bee!" Ginny was huffing, grumpily from outside the window.

"Bee's don't want to be painted Ginny dear!" Molly called.

"I wuzzunt!" Ginny protested, "The bee's buzzing me and getting in the way."

"Well just you be careful. Bees have work to do and it might think you're getting it its way."

"Bees don't work," Ginny said, annoyed, before moving to a different flower bed and calling back to the bee, "You stay over there you buzztard!"

"Ginny Weasley!" Molly gasped, fighting not to laugh.

"I didn't swear!" Ginny declared, "Why are you picking on me?"

Molly sighed and turned back to her pastry.

"Muuuuum?" The little watcher asked her, still gripping the counter and peering over the top.

"Yes dear?"

"What work do bees do?"

"They make honey."

"Bees work in Honeydukes?" Ron said, face bright with surprise.

"No they work in the garden, collecting pollen from flowers and they take it to a hive and make the honey there."

The little freckled forehead crinkled and Ron was silent for a while.

"Do Honeydukes buy it from the hive then?"

"They, and everybody who wants honey, buy it from the person who owns the hive." Molly said as she turned the flat disc of pastry over and began rolling it from the other side.

"So somebody owns the bees?" Ron frowned.

"Yes, Ronnie dear, that's exactly right."

"If I had a bee would I be able to make things sweet?" Ron asked her, pink fingers moving along the side of the counter, closer to where Molly was working.

"I think you'd need more than just one bee my love," Molly looked down on him fondly.

"I wouldn't want too many bees, I'm not greedy," he said with a look of great seriousness, "Maybe I could have two bees so the first bee has somebody to talk to while its making honey."

"Yes, I'm sure two bees would make enough honey for you," but they would probably die if you tried to keep them in the house and I know you don't like it when things die do you?"

Ron shook his head, vigorously.

"So how will I be sweet enough without a bee then Mum?"

Molly set aside her rolling pin and slid both her hands beneath the thin layer of pastry.

"Believe me, Ronnie love, you don't need sweetening."

Ron giggled and moved along the counter a little more, fingers still clinging to the counter, brushing off some of the flour into his face and making him sneeze.

"Bless me," he said automatically.

"Bless you," Molly said as she lifted the sheet of pastry up and draped it over the baking tin.

"Thank you," Ron said as he rubbed at his long, and now flour covered, nose.

Molly pressed the pastry into the shape of the baking tin and then picked up a knife to trim the excess from the edges.

Ron looked up at her, flour clinging to his long copper eyelashes, and then back at the strips of pastry being cut away.

"What are you gonna do now Mum?" he asked, a little hope sounding in his voice.

"I'm going to put some lovely ripe Bramley apples, all chopped up, into the pastry dish and then cover it up with some more pastry."

"Then put it in the oven," Ron added.

"Then put it in the oven, yes," she nodded with a smile.

The little fingers were shuffling along the side of the counter even further now, until the little body was sandwiched between his mother and the kitchen counter. Ron's big bright eyes were looking at the pile of unused pastry directly in front of him.

"You gonna use all that pastry to put on top of the pie then Mum?"

Molly bent over and pressed the side of her cheek into the side of her youngest boy's.

"I only need a few thin strips to put over the top. There'll be some left over."

Ron's little face looked very excited and he bit his lip.

"Do you remember the last time I made a pie and you helped me with the leftover pastry?" She asked, voice a whisper.

Ron's head nodded and he began to bounce up and down on the balls of his feet.

"I maked pastry shapes, of everybody's name letter, like R for Ron and G for Ginny, and you cooked them with the pie and we all had a pastry shape with our pie," he said, rapidly.

"Did you enjoy doing that last time?"

Again, Ron's enthusiastic nod responded to her question.

"Do you have an idea for what you want to make this time?"

"Yes!" Ron exploded with delight, finally releasing what he'd been holding in since he first started edging along the counter, watching her work.

"Oooh!" Molly beamed.

"I'm gonna make little pastry broomsticks and on the broom bit of the broom..."

"The brush?"

"The broom bit, yeah," Ron nodded, "I'm gonna put applecot jam!"

"Apricot jam for the bristles? What a marvellous idea!" Molly said with enthusiasm, "and you know what you can do to make the broom handle bit all shiny like varnished wood?"

"No, what?" Ron gasped in wonder.

"Just brush a little bit of egg over the pastry before it goes into the oven."

"Ugh, egg on pastry!" Ron said, looking disgusted.

"Not a whole egg, silly, just a bit of egg paint. Eggy varnish."

"And it'll make it all shiny like wood?" Ron asked, thoughtfully.

"Exactly like wood." Molly nodded.

Ginny was standing outside the door, covered in black paint, and looking confused.

"Why would you want to paint with egg?"

"You want your broom jam to be blackcurrant so it looks like your broom was painted with black paint?" Ron asked her, cheerfully.

Ginny looked very happy about this and bounced up and down on the doorstep, clapping her blackened hands together.

"Thank you Ron!"

Ron beamed up at Molly and he nodded and turned to the cupboard.

"I think I can find some blackcurrant jam for Ginny."

"And applecot for everyone else!" Ron added as he stood on his tiptoes to look into the open cupboard.

"Of course," Molly agreed as he reached for her home made apricot jam.

"And egg paint to make it shiny!"

Molly turned and handed her son the jar of golden coloured jam and ruffled his floury hair.

"Anything for my sunshine."


End file.
